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For those that have never, or rarely ever get into confrontations with the police this is a textbook case of what they will do to obtain information. They lie repeatedly to try and get this man to answer their questions. Thankfully because this man kept his head, and was ARMED the incident never got out of control.

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DC’s most experienced journalist says Obama lost credibility when he dodged question on Israeli nukes

In part one of his interview with Helen Thomas, longest-serving member of the White House Press Corps, Paul Jay asks her about her first question for President Obama. The question, asking President Obama to name all the countries in the Middle-East that have nuclear weapons, was avoided by the President, who claimed to not want to “speculate”. Thomas claims that knowledge of Israeli nukes is very public in DC and Obama’s answer shows a lack of credibility. She explains the importance of this question for U.S. policy in the region. Finally, she confides that she has not been called on by the President since that day, but that if she does, she will ask him whether or not he has found any more information about nukes in the Middle-East since their last encounter.

Helen Thomas is an American news reporter, member of the White House Press Corps and author She was the first female officer of the National Press Club and the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association. Her latest book, co-authored with Craig Crawford is Listen Up, Mr President: Everything you Always Wanted Your President To Know and Do.

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(CNSNews.com) – As many as a dozen taxes in the new health care law violate President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 and on individuals earning less than $200,000.

At least seven of these taxes directly affect health consumers regardless of income, such as the individual mandate to buy insurance, the employer mandate, the tanning tax, and limits and penalties on health savings accounts. In addition, Republicans argue that the tax impact of the law should include indirect taxes, such as the annual taxes on the health care sector that will be passed on to consumers.

On many occasions during the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama pledged that, if elected, he would ensure that Americans earning less than $250,000 a year would not see a federal tax increase of any kind.

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increases,” the Illinois senator told a crowd in Dover, N.H. on Sept. 12, 2008. “Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

As president, Obama repeated the pledge during his Feb. 24, 2009 address to a joint session of Congress.

“If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not a single dime,” the president said.

The bulk of the $500 billion in tax increases in the new health care law targets households earning $250,000 and individuals earning $200,000 — for example, the increase in the Medicare payroll tax. But many of the taxes hit the general public at large.

The individual mandate, for example, will require all legal U.S. residents to purchase a government-approved health insurance plan beginning in 2014. Once the reconciliation bill is voted on in the Senate to amend the law signed by Obama this week, the individual mandate will require a single person to pay 2.5 percent of their income or $695 if they do not purchase health insurance.

Generally, a single person making $30,000 or more will have to pay a 2.5 percent penalty if they do not carry health insurance. A person making less than $30,000 will have to pay $695. This penalty/tax is found in Section 1501 of the bill for “requirement to maintain minimum essential coverage.

The government will also mandate that employers provide health insurance for their employees. This mandate would include small businesses with revenues below $250,000 per year. If the employer does not provide health insurance, the business will have to pay a tax of $750 for each full-time employee. For the employer who requires a waiting period of 30-to-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee and $600 per employee if the business takes longer than 60 days to comply. This is found in Section 1513 of the bill for “shared responsibility for employers.”

“Small businesses are particularly hard hit,” said Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), a doctor and member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax laws. “They may end up with revenue below $250,000 and will have less take-home pay.”

Under the new law, Americans would not be able to use pre-tax dollars from health savings accounts (HSA), flexible spending accounts (FSA), or health reimbursements accounts (HRA) to buy over-the-counter non-prescription medicines. This measure takes effect in 2011 and is supposed to bring in $5 billion dollars. This is found in Section 9003 of the law, under “Distributions for medicine qualified only if for prescribed drug or insulin.”

“Many of us expected the president would violate his pledge,” Boustany told CNSNews.com. “HSAs and FSAs are a prime example. There are other adjustments we will find as we dig into this law. The more the American people see, the more they will find how the amount of tax increases affects them personally.”

Further, the law increases the tax from 10 percent to 20 percent for non-medical early withdrawals from a health savings account for those under the age of 65. This measure takes effect in 2011 and is estimated to increase revenues by $1.3 billion. This is under Section 9004, “Increase in additional tax on distributions from HSAs and Archer MSAs not used for qualified medical expenses.”

Beginning in 2011, the government will impose a cap of $2,500 on FSAs, which are now unlimited, as a means of raising $14 billion in revenue. This is under Section 9005, “Limitation on health flexible spending arrangements under cafeteria plans.”

Those seeking a tan without catching natural rays will find a new 10-percent excise tax on using indoor tanning salons. The tax, estimated to raise $2.7 billion, will take effect in July. This is under Section 10907, “Excise tax on indoor tanning services in lieu of elective cosmetic medical procedures.”

Now, medical expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of a person’s adjusted gross income can be deducted for tax purposes. But the new law raises that deduction threshold to 10 percent of adjusted gross income, meaning fewer tax deductions for someone with high medical costs. This provision starts in 2013 and is supposed to raise $15.2 billion in revenue. This is under Section 9013, “Modification of itemized deduction for medical expenses.”

The law also imposes a 40-percent tax on high-cost insurance plans reaching $10,200, but exempts union members unless the cost of their plan reaches $27,500. This is called the “Cadillac tax.” This tax is actually on the insurer. This goes into effect in 2018 and is estimated to raise $32 billion in revenue.

There is also a tax on insured and self-insured health plans for a patient-centered outcomes research trust fund. Boustany called this a slush fund for the Department of Health and Human Services to dole out grants.

The government estimates it will bring in $107 billion in revenue from new taxes on insurance companies, drug manufacturers and medical device manufacturers. These are three separate indirect taxes that will be passed on to consumers, Republicans contend.

“The annual tax on drug manufacturers and device makers will all be passed along to the consumer,” Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) told CNSNews.com. “The high-cost plan will encourage some employees to join a union to get a 40-percent discount.”

But Americans for Tax Reform, a libertarian taxpayer-advocacy group, does not believe it is necessary to consider indirect taxes.

“Frankly, you can say any tax is going to affect consumers. We didn’t need to really stretch to include too many other things,” ATR tax policy analyst Ryan Ellis told CNSNews.com. “We have seven that were pretty clear violations of President Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on these people. The one you always hear people bring up is the Cadillac excise tax. That’s not a tax on people, that’s a tax on the insurance company. We’ve never asserted that that is a tax [on consumers] because frankly it isn’t. We don’t need to make that argument because there are seven that clearly are.”

Just before signing the bill into law, President Obama said, “And this represents the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in our history.”

A Democratic spokesman for the House Ways and Means Committee could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. But after Obama signed the bill on Tuesday, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said in a statement that the law provides tax credits for four million small businesses.

“Today, in the greatest of American traditions – opportunity and community – we enacted a law that will improve the overall health of our citizens and the overall well-being of our nation,” Levin said in the March 23 statement. “This legislation was the product of generations of hard work, driven by the personal stories of so many who have suffered from a lack of health insurance and the devastation of rising health care costs.”

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Republicans forced a new vote on fixes to historic US health care reform legislation by finding two procedural “violations,” a spokesman for a top Democratic senator said on Thursday.

“After hours of trying to find a way to block this, they (Republicans) found two relatively minor provisions that are violations of Senate procedure which means we’re going to have to send it back to the House,” Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told AFP.

Reid had been working to corral Senate votes for a package of “fixes” to the health care legislation, which President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday.

Manley said the violations related to provisions dealing with “higher education,” but did not provide further details.

“I’m confident that the House will be able to deal with these and pass the legislation,” he said.

A day after Obama signed the main health care reform legislation into law, the Senate began debate Wednesday on modifications sent by the House.

Often the Senate and the House pass bills containing different language and then hammer out a consensus bill that both houses then vote on again.

In this case no compromise bill was drawn up and the House agreed to use the Senate version for its historic vote last Sunday.

The fixes were to alter provisions in the original Senate version of health care reform that the House had agreed to pass in exchange for certain alterations.

The Senate took up the package of fixes Wednesday, with Republicans seeking to introduce dozens of amendments aimed in part at forcing the House to vote anew.

Democrats planned to approve the changes in the Senate under rules that prevent Republicans from using a filibuster to indefinitely delay and kill the measure.

The health care legislation Obama signed into law Tuesday is his administration’s key priority and will extend coverage to some 32 million Americans who currently lack insurance.

The $940 billion overhaul means 95 percent of US citizens and legal residents under the age of 65 will have health insurance.

The 2,000-plus page bill mandates that all Americans buy insurance, or face fines — a provision that has drawn lawsuits from several state attorney generals who claim it is unconstitutional.

Among other key reforms, the legislation also bans insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, from dropping clients who get sick or from setting lifetime caps.

Republicans presented a united front in opposition to the bill, which also drew anti-reform protesters to Washington.

But a USA Today/Gallup poll taken just as it was signed into law found that nearly half of Americans support the overhaul, with 49 percent of respondents saying the bill was a “good thing,” while 40 percent considered it a “bad thing.”

US Senate passes ‘fixes’ to landmark health law

The US Senate on Thursday passed a set of technical changes to President Barack Obama’s historic health care overhaul, sending the package to the House of Representative for a likely final vote.

With US Vice President Joe Biden overseeing the proceedings, senators voted 56-43 to approve a set of fixes to the law, which Obama triumphantly signed on Tuesday after a year of bitter debate and legislative struggles.

Nearly 300 members of Congress have signed on to a declaration reaffirming their commitment to “the unbreakable bond that exists between [U.S.] and the State of Israel”, in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The letter was sent in the wake of the severe recent tensions between Israel and the U.S. over the prior’s decision to construct more than 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, a project it announced during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the region.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took advantage of his trip to the United States this week to try to mend the rift with the Obama administration, but he was greeted with cold welcome by the White House. Netanyahu also met during his visit with members of Congress, who welcomed him with significantly more warmth.

The letter from Congress expresses its “deep concern” over the U.S.-Israel crisis, and emphasizes that lawmakers had received assurances from Netanyahu that the events leading up to the recent tensions would not be repeated. Full Story Here

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(IsraelNN.com) Lee “Rosy” Rosenberg, a jazz recording industry veteran capitalist who accompanied U.S. President Barack Obama on his campaign trip to Israel two years ago, takes over on Sunday as the new president of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosenberg also served on the president’s national campaign finance committee.

The new AIPAC president hails from Chicago, the home state of President Obama, and also is on first-name terms with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior advisor.

Steve Rosen, a former 23-year, high-ranking AIPAC official, told the Chicago Tribune, “I don’t think AIPAC has made any secret of the reality that his friendship with the president played a role in Rosy’s rise. He’s a guy who works very hard at fundraising [and] in the political arena. It was not as if he was plucked out of nowhere. He paid his dues. But I’m sure nobody was blind to the fact that he’s from Chicago.“

Rosenberg is known as an expert in bringing in big money from powerful people who generally are not outwardly committed to Israel.

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The following is the Kol Nidre, a prayer recited by jews every year on the eve of yom kippur. This prayer quite literally gives them a license to lie for the entire year.

What kind of sick and vile religion practices such a thing? With this knowledge, how could in rational person ever trust a jew?

“All vows, obligations, oaths, and anathemas, whether called ‘konam,’ ‘konas,’ or by any other name, which we may vow, or swear, or pledge, or whereby we may be bound, from this Day of Atonement until the next (whose happy coming we await), we do repent. May they be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, and void, and made of no effect; they shall not bind us nor have power over us. The vows shall not be reckoned vows; the obligations shall not be obligatory; nor the oaths be oaths.”